


Violence With a Goal

by A_murder_most_peafowl



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: F/F, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-17
Updated: 2015-04-17
Packaged: 2018-03-13 09:12:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,055
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3375980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/A_murder_most_peafowl/pseuds/A_murder_most_peafowl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mafia AU in which Bertholdt, Reiner, and Ymir are cops trying to solve murders and track down the leader of the feared Reiss family.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Bertholdt sat at his desk staring at the piles of files that had build up over the last few months. Reiner sat across from him his white dress shirt untucked, and hat tipped forward covering his eyes. He hadn’t moved in what seemed to be an eternity, and Bertholdt was starting to doubt his vivacity for the mountain of cases laid before them. Ymir seemed just as sluggish, but she was the newbie in Homicide, and spent most of her time with the coroner. This of course, has nothing with Bertholdt’s fear of Hanji Zoe, and is certainly not his way of avoiding the woman entirely.

How Reiner was able to sleep with the amount of bodies that were piling up, Chief Erwin breathing down their necks, for any kind of break in the case, and his partner’s distress over said things, was a complete and utter anomaly to Bertl. He couldn’t dwell on any of this though because Ymir had returned with yet another file to add to their already monstrous heap. With a groan, Bertl let his head fall to the desk. The resulting thunk, jolted Reiner from his nap, and sent him to the floor. His tumble was accompanied with, a snot from Ymir, and sigh from Bert, and a grunt from his own lips as he hit the ground.

“We have another file to add to the tower,” Ymir mused eyeing Reiner on the floor with a smirk.

“Bertl, what the hell?” Reiner grumbled, dragging himself up off the floor.

“I’m tired,” was the only reply from Bertholdt, before he stood and slid his suit jacket on. “I’m going to get some coffee.”

Reiner rushed after him, tucking in his shirt in as quickly as possible, and calling for him to wait up. Though, Ymir found this behavior amusing and, regularly took every chance she had to point out such behavior as that of an old married couple. She found this instance to be in far too poor taste, even for her. Bertholdt was really trying, and was getting nowhere with the case. The very least Reiner could do was be conscious, for more than a few hours at a time.

She sat down in Bertl’s chair to leaf through the files that she had helped work over in every way possible. The pictures were rather grotesque, but paled in comparison to the actual crime scene. The latest of the recent string of murders, which were not uncommon in Shiganshina, were occurring more frequently and getting more violent as time pasted.

Shiganshina was a town that was run proudly by the underground gangs, who boasted their power over the police or any other authority that tried to force them out. The gang leaders seemed to be on a certain someone’s list, because their bodies, along with their subordinates, were what made up the entirety of the mountain. The problem of who had been solved, or rather told to them outright in the beginning. The calling card of the Reiss, was hard to miss when it was painted on the wall in blood. The fact was that they had nothing, but that calling card, no DNA, no weapon; they had even gone as far as digging the bullets out of one of the victims.

The phone rang startling Ymir from her deep thoughts over the lack of evidence. She picked it up, and hardly got a word in before Levi’s voice broke in.

“You shithead’s don’t know dick, right?”

“We shithead’s are doing our very best,” she answered, in an irritated tone.

“Well, you better get down to the corner of Elm and Pleasant Palms…” The tone buzzed in her ear, and she slammed the receiver down. She rushed out the door and ran into Bertl, who spilled his coffee over the both of them.

“Ahh… Ymir where are yo-“

“Corner of Elm and Pleasant Palms, Levi called.”

 

The corner of Elm and Pleasant Palm was a small grocery store, broken down by weather and poor management alike as it sat in its sad, molding nook overlooking the dumping grounds of a neighborhood which, coincidentally, was also sad and molding apart. The trio had taken Reiner's squad car from the station, and he and Bertholdt had spent the entire car ride bickering about Reiner's assumed negligent behavior as far as their cases were concerned. Ymir had spent most of the ride moping in silence; not really wanting to be involved in yet another one of Bertholdt's lectures on responsibility. Not that she wouldn't have loved to gang up on Reiner's smug ass, but she was just too tired to come up with any criticism that she deemed worthy. Not to mention she was probably too green of a cop to be making fun of her superiors openly anyway. Instead, she spent the whole ride staring out the window, thinking of the mountain of casework waiting for them back at the office, and resenting yet another bland case to add to the pile.

As they stepped out of the car onto the sidewalk, Ymir began to understand Levi's urgency on the phone. In front of the store was a mangled body, unlike that of any she had ever seen. With its arms and legs meticulously folded into a market fish tank that sat outside the store, it looked like a human picnic basket, fit for the smelt that scurried around it in alarm. Its clothing fluttered; its head bobbed. A fish swam up and through the man's hair as it swayed in the water. His eyes were open, which only added to the revulsion of the spectacle. He stared with striking fear emptily out of the glass at Ymir; making as much contact as dead eyes could or ever would make with her again. She became engrossed; noticing barely that the other officers were already at work. Some of them were constructing a giant blue tent over the scene, while others pushed back a group of nosy pedestrians who had wondered into the area. Still, the eyes held her in place.

"So whatdya slobs make of that?"

A flash of camera light hit her eyes and Ymir snapped back to see Sergeant Annie Leonhart flashing her cool, spiteful eyes over her as she spoke. The sergeant was a self- proclaimed hard-ass. Most of the time, Ymir found her mannerism hilarious, but between her confusing fear of the dead man and her already established hatred for the woman before her, all she could do was grind her teeth in anger and annoyance.

"No answer? Well, then get over there and help pitch that tent. I don't want any more civilians wandering over to get a look," she eyed Ymir with the blackest of hatred, "And when you're done with that, Reiner, Bertholdt, I want you to come find me. I have something I want to discuss with you."

With that Annie turned on her heals and trudged away toward another group of idle, unsuspecting first responders to inflict her wrath upon. 

The next 15 minutes were spent helping to pitch the enormously complicated tent and staying out of the way of the bustling workers. They pushed up poles, secured canvas, and dodged crime scene photographers. There was so much activity that Ymir barely noticed when Reiner silently wandered away from the work group.

"Ymir! Come over here and look at this." Reiner was squatting down in front on the fish tank, his face only inches from the glass and the terrified eyes of the victim. 

"Pretty sick isn't it? The body was cut open and drained before they shoved him in there." He turned and looked her directly in the face, "Can you imagine why anyone would do this?"

She wanted to scoff at him. Both of them had seen plenty of bodies in the morgue over the last few months; they both knew the question wasn't who would do this, but rather why had they left the body so mangled? The eyes of the fish tank man seemed to follow Ymir as she walked around to flank Reiner. She thought of the other cases on the desk back at the office. There really wasn't any official connection; as far as she knew, there had been no blood splattered messages on any of the walls outside the store. Maybe it was wrong to assume a connection. Shuddering, she watched a fish worm its way into the man's gaping mouth. No, she hadn't been on the force for very long, but she was beginning to learn to spot similar trends in murder scenes and she had a gut feeling. No one was going to convince her that they weren't all connected.

Reiner shook his head and straightened up," I'm going to go talk to Annie. Why don't you make yourself useful and go find Bertholdt and see if he needs help with anything. I heard him saying earlier that there was a witness and he was going to go check that out." 

He turned and walked away, leaving Ymir alone with the crime scene photographers in the tent. She stood and thought for awhile, not really sure of what to do or where to go next. Smirking, she briefly remembered that this was one of the only times she'd been left alone by either Bertholdt or Reiner in the last few days. Stretching out she leaned back against the wall, watching several officers walking into the crumbling grocery store door, and decided to slink in behind them, hoping there'd be more to the scene inside. She was right. Cops shoving left and right, trying to get a good angle of something, hurriedly pushed past her. As she began working her way back through the room, she spotted Bertholdt sitting alongside the back counter of the store, and beside him, a blond man with his face in his hands wearing civilian clothing. 

"This is Jean Kirschtein," Bertolt explained when she finally pushed her way through the crowd to him, "he owns this store and is our only witness right now."

The blond man moaned into his hands and lifted his head, his eyes visibly welling up with tears, "I don't know how this could have happened. I didn't think Marco had a enemy in the world he was always so friendly to everyone, " his voice caught and he blew his nose into a tissue he held in his hand, "there was nothing I could do, it all happened so fast." 

"Has he told you what happened yet?" Ymir interjected, visibly unaffected by the theatrics in front of her.

"He's just finishing up," Bertholdt glared, "basically Mr. Kirschtein here was outside when his... I'm sorry, your friend?" 

"Husband," Jean sniffled, "I was outback packing crates all afternoon. I heard some banging around inside but that's not uncommon around here. I did run inside to check on him, but there was nobody there. I'd just assumed he'd left to run errands early; I stayed up all night waiting for him but he never came home. The next morning was when I filed the missing persons report and I didn't hear anything for a few days. It wasn't until I came downstairs to open the store this morning that I....well; you've already seen what I found. 

"That's not all he found." Bertholdt interrupted, turning around and pointing a finger at the overhang above the store entrance. Painted in red liquid was a name Ymir was already expecting to see:

"REISS."

"They came in my store while I was sleeping." Jean shivered," I woke this morning and it was there." 

Bertholdt put his hand on Jean's shoulder before standing up, "Thank you Mr. Kirschtein, if there's anything you need, don't hesitate to let me know." 

The next few hours were a blur as everyone scavenged for evidence. Though, if Ymir was being honest with herself, she really didn’t expect to find anything. She had the unfortunate task of talking to the grieving widower with Bertl. They didn’t trust her to speak to the witnesses alone. She just wasn’t able to take that much crying, and was happy that they rarely made her do so. Meanwhile, Reiner got the fun job of looking for evidence, with the forensic team that had arrived.

Mr. Fishtank, or rather Marco Bodt, had married Jean Kirschtein when they were 22, and had taken over the Kirschtien’s family store with his husband.  They had been a happy couple and their three years of marriage held no more than the normal amount of fighting. They lived in the apartment above the store, and had made a good job of making it a decent place, for as decrepit as it seemed from the outside of the building. Bertl and Ymir sat for what seemed like hours making lists of people to speak to, and finally getting the sobered widower in to a taxi to a hotel for the next few nights.

They returned to Reiner who was watching as the body was finally loaded into the Medical Examiner’s van. Hanji was getting into the passenger’s seat, and nodded briefly to them both, before the van pulled away. Reiner turned towards them looking rather excited with a large grin on his face.

“Let’s get back to the office. Hanji said there are a couple people waiting on us there.” Reiner’s eye glinted slightly and Ymir knew who was waiting. She got into the car and refused to comment on the impromptu meeting that was awaiting their arrival.   


	2. Chapter 2

               Homicide took up an entire floor of the police station, which was separated with each department getting the exact amount of space it needed, and nothing more. Excluding DEA, of course, which was housed separately for a myriad of reasons, which really just meant we’re better than you. The office that Ymir shared with her two senior officers was tiny, with just two people in it, and that was before they jammed Ymir in the mix. The office was practically bursting at its seams with the extra people shoved in.  
  
               Eren Jaeger was likely the most intense ~~boy~~ man Ymir had ever met. He had been her classmate while she was in the academy, and she had grown a bitter distaste for his presence rather quickly. He was far too loud and drove her up the fucking wall without even trying. While, he was dedicated, he was also reckless with far more than just his own life, and while in training he had gotten the whole class in trouble with his reckless abandon on multiple occasions. Although he hadn’t come alone, the black haired girl next to him was the district attorney, and Ymir was slightly taken with her beauty, as usual, before Eren started talking.  
  
               “Mikasa…” And Ymir was gone, mentally in the very least. Her thoughts hung between wanting to hit on Jaeger’s sister, just to bug him, and the other on the cold dead eyes that stared at her through the glass of the fish tank. The weight of the entire situation seemed to dawn on her again, and messing with Jaeger was no longer an entertaining idea.  
  
               “Ymir, you’re being rude…” Bertholdt’s elbow in her ribs drove the weight of everything away for a moment. The woman was standing with a slight frown on her lips, and a hand extended towards her. She shook the offered hand daftly, and ignored Eren’s stupid smirking face. Ymir shared a desk with Bertl, mainly because Reiner was an ass, but she didn’t mind usually. She grabbed a pile of files off of a normally unused chair, and set them aside before sitting down.  
  
               “Levi sent me to explain why he called…Your victim has been under DEA’s watch for awhile…”  
  
               That’s Eren for you, right to the point. At least wasting time was something that he never did. He was always straight forward, and never was really good at making casual conversation, so he didn’t.  
  
               “We’ve known for some time that Mr. Bodt had been pedaling drugs on the side to supplement his family’s income. Levi is undercover with the family that supplied Mr. Bodt, and recently Levi began noticing inconstancies…”  
  
               Just then the group’s attention was stolen by the sound of a slamming door behind them. Armin entered and Annie followed with an expression that was slightly less peeved then usual on her face. Armin carried yet another pile of paperwork, and after noticing the huge pile they already had in the office, he smiled apologetically.  
  
               “I’m sorry I was late getting back guys, I had make sure that the um… paperwork was all in order.” Every set of eye in the small office started at him, most in disbelief, and one in slightly annoyed disappointment. Armin started talking again with a tinge of red on his cheeks, “The inconsistencies that Levi began noticing had to do with the amount of money coming from the drugs. Mr. Bodt's selling price had been pretty high, but started to drop off in the last month or so.”  
  
               Eren broke in then with a slight glare towards Armin, “We can’t go into much detail on some of this stuff, but the files should be everything that you need to know. Armin and I need to get back to base, so good luck with everything.” They made their exit quickly, and Mikasa sighed, looking at the files.   
  
               “The Mayor sent me to see if there were any breaks in these cases, and it seems I came just in time. Annie, have you explained the plan to everyone?”  
  
               “No actually I've explained to Reiner, but Ymir and Bertholdt probably don’t know anything about it yet.” Annie’s shitty attitude was back at full force, and Ymir had to stifle a groan. She really did have a stick up her ass with everyone, excluding her favorite bookworm. That was a relationship that had always confused Ymir, or rather everyone, but she didn’t hate it. At least when Armin was around she was a little nicer, and didn't frown so deeply.  
  
               “You’re going undercover at Mr. Bodt’s store…” Ymir ignored the rest of what Annie said. She was livid for a couple reasons. Mainly she was going to have to work in one of the few places she had ever been in that was worse than where she already worked, and secondly, going undercover meant that you couldn’t stay at your own house. With a budget that was as tight a child’s hand on the back of its mother’s skirt, they would all be living together in an apartment for god knows how long.  
  
               “Another team will be taking over the paperwork aspect of things while you three work the undercover angle of things. The Chief and I are trusting you not to fuck this up, do you all understand?” Three affirmative answers followed, and Annie left to report to Chief Erwin that the three of them would be going undercover by the end of the next week.  


* * *

...  
  
               Historia Reiss lounged stiffly on a couch of silk, running her hands up and down the upholstery, and staring blankly at a portrait of a small man hanging on the wall across from her. The name "Rod Reiss", displayed in gold underneath the frame, glinted blandly in the dull lighting of the room. His eyes were the color of old steel; holding, stiff and cold, the secrets of a lifetime of manipulation and deceit. Even in pictures, he held a silent power in his manner, that of which Historia knew she was not likely to ever see in a man again.  
  
               "I don't know, I guess you could eat it then; but if it looks like it's been sitting out for more than three days you'd better forget about it."  
  
               There was a sound of a closing door behind her and she craned her head slightly, not enough to give away her surprise, but just enough to see who had walked in.  
  
               "Well, I don't see the problem with it, a sandwich is a sandwich, you know?" Sasha chuckled, throwing her arm around Connie and smiling.  
  
               "What are you two doing?"  
  
               Connie and Sasha jumped, obviously surprised to see someone else in the room, and then, suddenly mortified to see their matriarch starring with somber eyes over the arm of the couch.   
  
               "We're sorry, Miss Reiss, we didn't mean to intrude!" Sasha stammered, stumbling over her own feet.  
  
               Historia glanced up for a second, spacious eyes only registering a small flicker of acknowledge as she watched the pair. A ghost of a smile played across her lips as she turned away from them to look back at the picture on the wall. "What do you two think of this portrait, should I get it reframed?"  
  
               Sasha and Connie looked at each other in silence, obviously confused by the question.   
  
               "I don't know, I think solid gold trimming would be the absolute shit," Connie laughed nervously, trying to make sense of whether or not he would be getting into trouble.   
  
               Historia continued to stare at the picture, smiling slightly at Connie's boldness, "Hmm...I don't know...I just don't know."   
  
               "I'll tell you what to do with it; send the whole goddamn thing through the wood chipper!" A harsh voice bellowed from the doorway and they all turned around. Standing on the threshold was Kenny Ackerman, the tall, old staple of a man who'd been loyally serving the family since before Historia could remember. He leaned on the door frame, tipping his grubby hat and laughing as the whole room gave him their attention, "But of course I don't have that kind of power around here."  
  
               Historia gave a tired look and shifted her weight on the couch to prop herself up, "What do you want Kenny?"   
  
               "Nothing ma'am. Just back to report that our little...Fishy problem has been taken care of," he laughed again, pushing himself off of the door frame and walking into the room, "quite frankly, it was a particularly enjoyable experience; most fun I've had in years."   
  
               "I'm not interested in hearing the details, thank you."  
  
               "Just saying, I'm glad you put me on this job," he grinned, glad to be making Historia squeamish, "actually, I came here for some volunteers to take a little trip across town. I need some heavy lifting done."  
  
               "Why don't you take these two," Historia said blandly, pointing a delicate finger towards Sasha and Connie, who stood awkwardly to the side, "I'm sure they're strong enough."   
  
               "Well the thing is ma'am, we really needed to..." Connie's voice trailed off as he realized she had not been offering his and Sasha's help, but rather demanding it, "It was nothing important anyway. We'll come along and help you, Kenny."   
  
               Kenny smiled and after a quick nod to Historia, motioned with a big meaty hand for them to follow him out the door.  
  
               For a long time after everyone had left, Historia stared at the portrait. She memorized the curves of her father's face; the creases around his eyes and forehead. Once or twice during this time, much to her own embarrassment, she found herself trying to mirror his facial expression. But it was no use. His demeanor came with experience, something she definitely didn't have. Even though she had been groomed for his position her entire life, she knew it was a likely possibility that she would never be able to handle the family quite like he had. Growing frustrated, her mind wandered from memory to memory of her father. How he'd sit her down and lecture her for hours on her responsibility to the family; how stern and striking his face had been. Through so many hours and so many days of teaching, in this moment, she could only think of one afternoon when she was 10, when lilacs seeped through the windows of her family's summer house and the air tasted like salt, that her father had given one of the most memorable speeches of her childhood.  
  
               "Sometimes good men must die Historia, not always because of what they've done or what they could do, but because there just isn't enough room for people like us to function in a world with the likes of them. It's stifling; just by mere existence alone they choke off our lives; the life of our family. I need you to understand that I can't teach you what these men look like, but I only pray that you'll know enough to recognize them when the time comes."  
  
               For the longest time her train of thought flickered between her father's teachings and what Kenny had said about the mission. Her stomach flipped as she thought about the morning she had ordered the death; how the words had hung in the air before her and trickled out to Kenny's ears before she could recognize what they meant. It had been so simple; so powerful. One minute death was only an idea, and the next she was looking at a lifeless corpse. It was all in her control. She squirmed on the couch with worry. A year and a half of making similar decisions and the feeling didn't seem to be getting any more familiar. One by one, memories like these continued to torment her for the next hour until eventually, defeated and tired, Historia drifted off to sleep with the thoughts of Rod Reiss and the piles of dead men she had created, both past and future, billowing through her mind.


	3. Chapter 3

              To say that Ymir’s landlord was angry was an understatement. Hitch was livid, and was close to exploding before Ymir went to speak to her, but that was just because the pluming in the complex she called home was absolute shit. The entire building was falling apart at its seams, but the pluming was a problem in itself that drove Hitch up the fucking wall regularly. She tried her best to keep the complex full, which it absolutely was, and to keep things running smoothly. Yet, somehow, everything still continued to come and bite her in the ass.  
  
               “You’re moving…” the tone of her voice was comparable to a disgruntled pet owner who was tired of cleaning up after said pet.  
  
               “Something like that, yeah…” Ymir trailed off.  
  
               Hitch took a deep breath, and released it after a second. “That’s great, really it is…”  
  
               Ymir left as quickly as possible after that. She wanted to avoid the shit storm that was beginning, and further more she needed to pack her things. Reiner and Bert being left alone in her apartment was absolutely terrifying, and she practically sprinted up to her apartment. Throwing the door open to see Bertholdt blushing like mad and avoiding eye contact with her was exactly what she didn’t want to see.  
  
               “Where is Reiner?” she ground out. Bert still didn’t look at her, but he pointed off towards her bedroom. She stalked over to the dark blue door, and threw it open. Reiner was digging around in the nightstand next to her bed, and had thrown some of her stuff out for display.  
  
               “Reiner, what are you doing?” she asked quickly, with a glare settling on to her face. He stopped digging threw her draw, and turned around while holding something behind his back.  
“Nothing really, just looking around… You can imagine how surprised I was to find this!” he threw what he held behind his back at her. She caught it, blushing madly down at the vibrator in her hands. He had hit the switch when he had thrown it, making it tingle in her hand. She turned it off.  
  
               “Get out of my room,” she muttered.  
  
               “Hey, I was just messing with you, kid. Don’t worry about it,” he said shrugging and leaving the room. She closed the door behind him, and gathered the things off her bed before putting it all away. She laid face down on her bed for a few minutes to get her embarrassment under control, before joining the other two in her small living area.  
  
               They had packed Bertholdt’s things the day before, and the day before that Reiner’s. She hadn’t really wanted their help, but Bert insisted that it would go so much faster if she had help. The logic was sound, and she couldn’t argue. She didn’t have much anyway, and going through her things alone was just as unappealing. So why not have her superior officers friends help her?  
  
               “So, ah… where do you want us to start?” Bert asked turning around on the bar stool he had chosen as his seat. Her cheeks flared slightly, and she pointed to the closet next to the front door. She shuffled over to the closet, and pulled out the boxes she had accumulated for the move.  
  
               “Let’s start with her drawer full of fake dicks,” Reiner piped from his seat on her couch. Ymir clenched her fist and let a breath out through her teeth. “I mean that thing was full.”  
  
               “Yeah, well my last girlfriend was weird, okay. She we allergic to silicone, and I had to get new stuff. Then we broke up, and I’ll be damned it I was giving her all of that shit…” Ymir stopped, realizing what she had just done.  
  
               She wasn’t ashamed of being a lesbian, but breaching that subject with her superior officers wasn’t something that had actually come up yet. It had been easy in the academy. There weren’t a lot of woman, and diverting the advances of the guys was easy, chiefly because she was a lot tougher than most of them. They learned quickly not to fuck with her there. But this was different; she had to work with Bert and Reiner, and fighting with them was defiantly not an option.  
  
               “Damn it,” Reiner said leaning over to dig his wallet out of his pocket. “How the hell did you know?”  
  
               “I guessed with you, too,” Bertl stated holding out his hand. Reiner threw him his wallet, and Bert dug out a crisp twenty, before tossing the wallet back. Bertl put the money in his own pocket, before smiling softly at Ymir. “Sorry, we made a bet on it.”  
  
               Ymir made a face, “You made a bet… On if I was gay?”  
  
               “Yep, we’ve been doing it for years. Every time some new people join up, we make a list and bet on each name. It helps brighten our days a little,” Reiner explained shrugging, before standing up. “Where’s the tape I’ll start putting the boxes together.”  


               “No, no, no you are not avoiding the fact that that you’re sooo gay too.” Ymir protested.

  
               Reiner sighed, “You had to say that didn’t you?”  
  
               “Oh, but we’re bonding isn’t that a good thing. We’ll show you the list some time; you can join in if you want?” Bertholdt added before smirking. Ymir got Reiner some tape, and they put some of the boxes together, before starting to pack her things.   
  
               Reiner and Bertl left after they had finished promising to be back the next day to held load and transport her things to the new apartment. Ymir sat on her couch for a long while after they left, thinking about how she felt towards them. Reiner was kind of an ass a times, and Bertl was a little soft for her liking, but the two balanced each other nicely. In the end she pinned down exactly how she felt about them. They were now her friends and she was happy to finally to make some after such a long time.

              

* * *

 

               The Kirschtein’s store had changed since Ymir had been there last. There was a major upswing in the amount of foot traffic, which was hardly uncommon in these types of cases. People really loved tragedy, and the amount of flowers on the sidewalk in front of the store alerted the general public gaudily to the tragedy taking place.  
  
               The three detectives had very little time to learn the ropes of working in the store. Fortunately for Reiner, he had worked in a store that was slightly bigger than this while he was in college, and remembered basically how to run the cash register. On the other hand, Ymir and Bertl where stuck stocking shelves, and helping the customers on the floor. Ymir spent the majority of her time fairly irritated with everything, and forcing customers toward Bert to avoid making the job harder for everyone else.  
  
               Ymir found that Jean was surprisingly good at putting on a smile for his customers, but as soon as the door was locked for the day his face dropped. He was so angry, because he received so many condolences from people he didn’t know, because he was stuck with a woman posing as his husband’s sister and two other men who were his “old friends”, because he just wanted to crawl into bed beside Marco.  
  
               “Jean, are you alright?” Bertholdt asked, genuinely concerned for Jean’s well being. Jean didn’t respond right away. He continued to stare at the large batch of new flowers in front of his store.  
  
               “No…” His reply came as he moved towards the door. He unlocked it, and swiftly moved to the flowers. He started to kick the vases, and Ymir stood stunned watching as the man destroyed the small shrine that had been built for his husband. Reiner and Bertl began to move to stop him, but Ymir stopped them both.  
  
               “Don’t! He needs to do something, and it this makes him feel better it doesn’t hurt anyone!” She hadn’t meant to shout. She wasn’t even sure what made her think that it mattered. She didn’t even know him, how did she know what would help him.   
  
               Jean reentered the small store with tears streaking his cheeks. The bottoms of his jeans were soaked, stray peddles stuck to him, and he was breathing hard, trying to calm himself down. No one said anything for a long moment, but Reiner spoke finally.  
  
               “Feel any better?” his tone bordered on sarcasm, and both of his partners glared at him furiously.  
  
               Jean sniffed, and whipped his face on the sleeve of his light jacket, “The funny thing is, yeah, I do feel a little better.”  
  
               Ymir snorted, and Jean let a small smile slip onto his face. They went back to cleaning and straightening the store, and after they were finished, Jean invited them up to his apartment to have a drink. The drink quickly turned into two, and slowly they all became more comfortable with each other. Jean even let a few laughs slip before they left.

 

* * *

 

               The next morning, Ymir woke up to Bert knocking lightly on her door. She sighed before rolling over, and pulling her pillow over her head. Her door squeaked open slowly, and Bert’s voice followed lightly.

               “Ymir, you have the early shift today…” He was trying so hard to be nice, and god did she hate that this early in the morning. She wasn’t going to get up with him being nice, and she sure as hell wasn’t going to listen to him.  
  
               “Go away…” she mumbled in to her pillows, burying her head further in to the stuffing. She heard him sigh, and then the door closed. She was surprised. He hadn’t even tried to argue with her. She was beginning to think that he didn’t care if she got up or not. Her thoughts were cut short by the door opening again, and much heavier and quicker. A large weight was on top of her then, and she groaned miserably.  
  
               “Get the fuck off of me… You weight a ton!”  
  
               “Are you going to get up now?” Reiner asked shifting his weight around on top of her to make her more uncomfortable.  
  
               “Yes! Now just get off!” she shouted trying to reach back and hit him, but she couldn’t reach. Once he had gotten off of her, she rolled over and made an attempted to grab him, but got tangled in one of her six blankets and caught nothing, but the floor with her face. Reiner laughed as he ran out of the room, and Ymir practically growled as she got ready of the day. She looked in the mirror before leaving the apartment. She really hoped that she wouldn’t have a bruise to explain. 


End file.
